The Alcatel Idol 4 and Idol 4S were released over a year ago at Mobile World Congress. Their successors, the Idol 5 and Idol 5S will be launched at IFA Berlin next week. Details of both devices have showed up online.
Alcatel Idol 5S Design
The Idol 5S sports a nearly identical design to that of the Idol 4S. The main difference is the design of the front facing speakers which now have fewer but larger holes. We presume that change applies to the speakers at the back too. The forehead and chin are still thick though, so even with a 5.2-inch screen, it will be big.
The Idol 5S also features the Boom Key, below the volume rocker which can be used to fire up the camera, as a shutter button or turn on the volume boost. Power button and SIM tray are on the left.
There are no images of the rear of the phone.
Alcatel Idol 5S Specs (Mediatek and Qualcomm)
The Idol 5S (6060) will launch in two variants. One will be powered by a MT6757CH SoC (Helio P25) and the other will feature the popular Snapdragon 625. Both variants have been seen on GFXBench and differ with respect to processors, RAM, camera features, NFC, and version of Android they are running.
The Idol 5S will have a 5.2-inch full HD display, 3GB of RAM for the Snapdragon model and 2GB RAM for the Mediatek model. Both variants have 32GB of built-in storage. On the rear sits a 12MP camera with LED flash and up in front is an 8MP camera.
The Mediatek and Qualcomm chips are both octa-core SoCs using the Cortex A53 cores. The Helio P25 is clocked at 2.3GHz and has a Mali-T880 GPU while the SD625 is clocked at 2.0GHz and sports the Adreno 506
The rear camera on the Snapdragon variant can record in 4K but that info is missing from the Helio P20 variant. So while the pixel count are the same on both devices, the sensors may be different. The Mediatek variant however has the advantage of having NFC.
Both phones run Nougat but the MediaTek variant is Android 7.0 and the Snapdragon model runs Android 7.1.1
The only detail missing for the Idol 5S is the battery capacity. The price of the Mediatek variant of the Idol 5S is said to be 399 Euros (~$476).
Idol 5 Design
The images of the Idol 5 reveal that Alcatel is taking a different route with respect to the lower specced version of the Idol series. Unlike the Idol 4 which shares a similar design to the Idol 4S, the Idol 5 is a different device entirely. There are no dual front facing speakers neither is there a Boom Key.
The front of the Idol 5 shows the device has thick bezels. The chin is bare but at the top, you will find the earpiece flanked on the right by the front camera and on the left by the sensor.
On the rear of the phone, is the main camera sitting at the top left corner with a dual LED flash a few millimeters from it. Positioned in the middle is a fingerprint scanner and below it is the IDOL branding. Further down is Alcatel’s logo.
The Idol 5 has adopted the U-antenna design and it looks nice on both the silver and black variants. The back of the phone curves at the sides to allow for a more comfortable grip.
READ MORE: Alcatel U5 HD Revealed Before IFA 2017 Launch
Idol 5 Specs
The Idol 5 (TCL 6058) was seen on GFXBench too but appears to have been taken off. It has a 5.2-inch 1080p display like the Idol 5S and is powered by the octa-core MT6735 processor clocked at 1.3GHz. Surprisingly, it has 3GB of RAM, more than the Mediatek variant of the Idol 5S. However, storage is just 16GB.
The front camera is a 13MP sensor but there is no info on the rear camera. There is a 2800mAh battery under the hood and the phone runs Android 7.0.
The Idol 5 will reportedly have a price tag of 250 Euros (~$298).
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